Solinus, Caius Julius; ed. Joannes Camers (Giovanni Ricuzzi) AND Pomponius Mela, ed. Joachim Vadianus (van Watt)

Ioannis Camertis minoritani, artium, et sacrae theologiae doctoris, in. C. Iulii Solini polyhistora enarrationes. Additus eiusdem Camertis Index, tum literarum ordine, tum rerum notabiliu[m] copia, perco[m]modus Studiosis BOUND WITH Pomponii Melae Hispani, Libri de situ orbis tres, adiectis IOachimi VAdiani Heluetii in eosdem Scholiis: Addita quoque in Geographia Catechesi: & Epistola Vadiani ad Agricola[m] digna lectu. Cum Indice summatim omnia complecte[n]te

EX-COLL. PRINCE-ABBOT COELESTINUS II STEIGLEHNER,
MIKLÓS JANKOVICH and the HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM

 

Solinus, Gaius Julius; ed. Joannes Camers (Giovanni Ricuzzi). Ioannis Camertis minoritani, artium, et sacrae theologiae doctoris, in. C. Iulii Solini πολυíστωρα [polyhístōra] enarrationes. Additus eiusdem Camertis Index, tum literarum ordine, tum rerum notabiliũ copia, percõmodus Studiosis. Vienna: Johann Singriener for Lucas Alantse, 1520. First Camers edition.

     bound with

Pomponius Mela, ed. Joachim Vadianus. Pomponii Melae Hispani, Libri de situ orbis tres, adiectis IOachimi Vadiani Heluetii in eosdem Scholiis: Addita quoque in Geographia Catechesi: & Epistola Vadiani ad Agricolã digna lectu. Cum Indice summatim omnia complectête. Vienna: Johann Singriener for Lucas Alantse, 1518. Editio princeps (first edition).

Folio in 6s and 4s (11 7/8” x 8 3/16”, 301mm x 209mm): binder’s blank, π⁸ a⁴ b-z⁶ A-E⁶ F⁴ aa-dd⁶ ee⁴ (ee4 blank); AA⁴ BB⁶ ₂a-z⁴ ₂A-O⁴ (O4 blank), binder’s blank [$4 signed in 6s, $3 signed in 4s; +π2-5; –₂a1]. 364 leaves (Solinus: 206, Mela: 158), pp. [16] (title, 2pp. imperial privilege (signed by Jakob Spiegel), 6pp. dedication of Camers to István Werbőczy Palatine of Hungary, 4pp. verses, 2pp. life of Solinus, text) 1-336 [36] (2pp. errata, colophon, blank, 28pp. index, Singriener to the reader, printer’s device, 2 blanks); foll. [23] (title, blank, imperial privilege (signed by Jakob Spiegel), 11pp. index, 5pp. verses, blank, fly-title, verses, 3pp. dedication from Vadianus to Abbot Franz von Gaisberg of St. Gall, 21pp. preface) 1-79 ₂79 80-132 [2] (Vadianus to Conrad Grebel, colophon, 2 blanks). With Apianus’ 1520 folding woodcut world map.

Bound in contemporary clasped beveled wooden boards backed in alum-tawed pigskin. Authors and date (“SOLINUS⁂/POMPONIUS⁂MEL/A/1520”) in black (tarnished silver?) to the front cover. On the spine, six raised bands. Authors and titles (“Jul. Solini/ Polyhist./Pompon. Mela/de situ orbis”) ink manuscript to the first panel. “Solinvs” ink manuscript to the upper edge of the text-block.

Soiling to the spine, with some wear at the head. A quarter-inch loss to the upper fore-edge of the front board (above the clasp). The thongs of the clasps renewed. Some worming to the boards, continuing into the text-block (from the front paste-down to r3, affecting the text to b3), and from ₂C4 to the end (mostly in a single track). Dampstain along the upper edge, mostly quite mild (heavy to F2 and surrounding leaves), sometimes at the fore and lower edges as well. An old fore-edge tab to ₂L2 (Vadianus’ letter). The map restored. Armorial bookplate of “Coelestinus Steiglehner ultimus Princeps Abbas S.^ti Emmerani Platisb.” to the front paste-down, with the oval purple ink-stamp of the Hungarian state museum. Ink institutional ownership inscription and shelfmark of the “Bibiliothecae Hungaricae Jankowichianæ/ H. ord. 13”. Oval purple ink-stamp of the Hungarian state museum and their rectangular deaccession stamp (“duplum venditum/ e bibliotheca/ musæi.nat.hung.”) to the verso of the map. Oval black ink-stamp of the Hungarian state museum (“A’.M.N. MUZEUM/ KÖNYV-/TÁRÁBÓL”) and their rectangular deaccession stamp to the title-page. Mechanical ink-stamp (“600550”) to the verso of the Solinus title-page. Oval purple ink-stamp of the Hungarian state museum and their rectangular deaccession stamp to the verso of the Pomponius Mela title-page.


Gaius Julius Solinus wrote his treatise De mirabilibus mundi (On the wonders of the world) — also called the Polyhistor (Πολυΐστωρ; “very learned”), as here — in the first half of the third century of the current era. Although it draws on the work of Pliny and Pomponius Mela, it sets its observations on customs and peoples in a firmer chorographical-cartographical framework. Its editio princeps (1473) was before the discovery of the New World, and so its awareness of the world was surpassed only east- and southward. Over time, the Polyhistor along with the work of Pomponius Mela and Ptolemy became the framework for modern atlases.

The present work is not (only) the Polyhistor but the commentary (enarrationes) of Johannes Camers (various names; he was born in Camerino and died in Vienna; 1468–1546), the Franciscan (Friar Minor, per the title) humanist. Laid out in the traditional manner of a manuscript commentary, the text unfurls from the spine and is ringed on three sides by notes on the text. The text and commentary are followed by Camers’s index of locations, which, as the title boasts, is indeed perco[m]modus Studiosis, very convenient for scholars.

The cordiform (heart-shaped, though in reality more renal) map of Peter Apian (Petrus Apianus, 1492–1552) had long been thought the earliest appearance of “America” — i.e., South America — on a map, but it has been antedated by Waldseemüller’s 1507 map Universalis Cosmographia, of which only one copy survives (in the Library of Congress; Waldseemüller also made gores for a globe in the same year, which survive in a few more instances). It is thus the earliest obtainable map to name the continent “America,” and important for separating the Americas from Asia.

Pomponius Mela (d. ad 45) was born hard by the Strait of Gibraltar; it is no accident that as a resident of the end of the known world, he was the first Roman geographer whose work survives. A frequent source of Pliny (whose Historia naturalis has geographical components but belongs properly to a different genre), Mela bridges the gap between the Greek geographers (Eratosthenes, Ptolemy) and his successors; his knowledge of the expanding Roman Empire in western and northern Europe surpasses that of his predecessors. Until Ptolemy was translated into Latin in 1406, it was the principal geographical work available in Europe.

Joachim Vadianus (van Watt, 1484–1551) here edits for the first time in print Pomponius Mela’s De orbis situ libri tres (three books on the description of the world); in 1522 Camers would also edit the work, giving a likely terminus ante quem for the union of the works. Of particular importance is the letter from Vadianus to Rodolphus Agricola Jr. (son of the renowned Dutch Humanist) that describes, among other things, the rationale for naming the new world — “terra nova” — “America” after Amerigo Vespucci.

Coelestinus II Steiglehner OSB (1738–1819), was the last prince-abbot of St. Emmeram’s Abbey in Regensburg, which became a great center of the study of science, particularly astronomy, in the XVIIIc. The Principality of Regensburg absorbed the abbey in 1803 before being absorbed itself into Bavaria in 1810. Steiglehner himself — formerly professor of physics, astronomy and mathematics at the University of Ingolstadt — later became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (BAdW).

Thereafter the volume came into the possession of the greatest Hungarian bibliophile of the early XIX, Miklós Jankovich (1772–1846), whose library was sold under financial necessity to the Hungarian Parliament, bringing it — along with antiquities and art — into the library (“Könyvtárából” can be rendered “from the library of”) of the Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum) on the Pest side of Budapest. The museum began with the library of Count Széchényi, around which the archaeological and historical collections grew; the Jankovich collection entered the museum in 1832.

Solinus: Adams S-1391; Aldin-Landis 520/25; Church 45; JCB 1:77; Sabin 86390; Shirley 45 (map).
Mela: Sabin 63956; VD16 M 2310.

Item #JLR0760

Price: $120,000